Common feature protocol for collaborative machine learning

ABSTRACT

The disclosed embodiments provide a system for processing data. During operation, the system obtains a hierarchical representation containing a set of namespaces of a set of features shared by a set of statistical models. Next, the system uses the hierarchical representation to obtain, from one or more execution environments, a subset of the features for use in calculating the derived feature. The system then applies a formula from the hierarchical representation to the subset of the features to produce the derived feature. Finally, the system provides the derived feature for use by one or more of the statistical models.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. section 119(e) to U.S.Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/242,799, entitled “DeclarativeNamespace System,” by inventors David J. Stein, Xu Miao, Lance Wall,Joel D. Young, Eric Huang, Songxiang Gu, Darren Teng and Chang-MingTsai, filed on 16 Oct. 2015.

BACKGROUND Field

The disclosed embodiments relate to collaborative machine learning. Morespecifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to techniques forproviding a common feature protocol for collaborative machine learning.

Related Art

Analytics may be used to discover trends, patterns, relationships,and/or other attributes related to large sets of complex,interconnected, and/or multidimensional data. In turn, the discoveredinformation may be used to gain insights and/or guide decisions and/oractions related to the data. For example, business analytics may be usedto assess past performance, guide business planning, and/or identifyactions that may improve future performance.

To glean such insights, large data sets of features may be analyzedusing regression models, artificial neural networks, support vectormachines, decision trees, naïve Bayes classifiers, and/or other types ofstatistical models. The discovered information may then be used to guidedecisions and/or perform actions related to the data. For example, theoutput of a statistical model may be used to guide marketing decisions,assess risk, detect fraud, predict behavior, and/or customize oroptimize use of an application or website.

However, significant time, effort, and overhead may be spent on featureselection during creation and training of statistical models foranalytics. For example, a data set for a statistical model may havethousands to millions of features, including features that are createdfrom combinations of other features, while only a fraction of thefeatures and/or combinations may be relevant and/or important to thestatistical model. At the same time, training and/or execution ofstatistical models with large numbers of features typically require morememory, computational resources, and time than those of statisticalmodels with smaller numbers of features. Excessively complex statisticalmodels that utilize too many features may additionally be at risk foroverfitting.

Additional overhead and complexity may be incurred during sharing andorganizing of feature sets. For example, a set of features may be sharedacross projects, teams, or usage contexts by denormalizing andduplicating the features in separate feature repositories for offlineand online execution environments. As a result, the duplicated featuresmay occupy significant storage resources and require synchronizationacross the repositories. Each team that uses the features may furtherincur the overhead of manually identifying features that are relevant tothe team's operation from a much larger list of features for all of theteams.

Consequently, creation and use of statistical models in analytics may befacilitated by mechanisms for improving the sharing and reuse offeatures among the statistical models.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 shows a schematic of a system in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a system for processing data in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary hierarchical representation of features in acommon feature protocol in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart illustrating the processing of data inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart illustrating the process of using ahierarchical representation of a set of features to obtain a subset ofthe features for use in calculating a derived feature in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 6 shows a computer system in accordance with the disclosedembodiments.

In the figures, like reference numerals refer to the same figureelements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is presented to enable any person skilled inthe art to make and use the embodiments, and is provided in the contextof a particular application and its requirements. Various modificationsto the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilledin the art, and the general principles defined herein may be applied toother embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit andscope of the present disclosure. Thus, the present invention is notlimited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scopeconsistent with the principles and features disclosed herein.

The data structures and code described in this detailed description aretypically stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which may be anydevice or medium that can store code and/or data for use by a computersystem. The computer-readable storage medium includes, but is notlimited to, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, magnetic and opticalstorage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs),DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or other mediacapable of storing code and/or data now known or later developed.

The methods and processes described in the detailed description sectioncan be embodied as code and/or data, which can be stored in acomputer-readable storage medium as described above. When a computersystem reads and executes the code and/or data stored on thecomputer-readable storage medium, the computer system performs themethods and processes embodied as data structures and code and storedwithin the computer-readable storage medium.

Furthermore, methods and processes described herein can be included inhardware modules or apparatus. These modules or apparatus may include,but are not limited to, an application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC) chip, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a dedicated orshared processor that executes a particular software module or a pieceof code at a particular time, and/or other programmable-logic devicesnow known or later developed. When the hardware modules or apparatus areactivated, they perform the methods and processes included within them.

The disclosed embodiments provide a method, apparatus, and system forprocessing data. As shown in FIG. 1, the system may be a data-processingsystem 102 that analyzes one or more sets of input data (e.g., inputdata 1 104, input data x 106) to discover relationships, patterns,and/or trends in the input data; gain insights from the input data;and/or guide decisions and/or actions related to the input data.

The results from such data analysis may be provided in responses toqueries (e.g., query 1 128, query z 130) of data-processing system 102.For example, data-processing system 102 may create and train one or morestatistical models 110 for analyzing input data related to users,organizations, applications, job postings, purchases, electronicdevices, websites, content, sensor measurements, and/or othercategories. The statistical models may include, but are not limited to,regression models, artificial neural networks, support vector machines,decision trees, naïve Bayes classifiers, Bayesian networks, hierarchicalmodels, and/or ensemble models.

The results of such analysis may be used to discover relationships,patterns, and/or trends in the data; gain insights from the input data;and/or guide decisions or actions related to the data. For example,data-processing system 102 may use the statistical models to generateoutput 118 that includes scores, classifications, recommendations,estimates, predictions, and/or other properties. Output 118 may beinferred or extracted from primary features 114 in the input data and/orderived features 116 that are generated from primary features 114 and/orother derived features. For example, primary features 114 may includeprofile data, user activity, sensor data, and/or other data that isextracted directly from fields or records in the input data. The primaryfeatures 114 may be aggregated, scaled, combined, and/or otherwisetransformed to produce derived features 116, which in turn may befurther combined or transformed with one another and/or the primaryfeatures to generate additional derived features. After output 118 isgenerated from one or more sets of primary and/or derived features,output 118 may be queried and/or used to improve revenue, interactionwith the users and/or organizations, use of the applications and/orcontent, and/or other metrics associated with the input data.

In addition, data-processing system 102 may use a hierarchicalrepresentation 108 of features 114 and derived features 116 to organizethe sharing, production, and use of the features across different teams,execution environments, and/or projects. As described in further detailbelow, hierarchical representation 108 may include a directed acyclicgraph (DAG) that defines a set of namespaces for primary features 114and derived features 116. The namespaces may disambiguate among featureswith similar names or definitions from different usage contexts orexecution environments. Hierarchical representation 108 may includeadditional information that can be used to locate primary features 114in different execution environments, calculate derived features 116 fromthe primary features and/or other derived features, and track thedevelopment of statistical models or applications that accept thederived features as input. Consequently, data-processing system 102 mayimplement, in hierarchical representation 108, a common feature protocolthat describes a feature set in a centralized and structured manner,which in turn can be used to coordinate large-scale collaborativemachine learning across multiple entities and statistical models.

FIG. 2 shows a system for processing data, such as data-processingsystem 102 of FIG. 1, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Thesystem includes a namespace manager 202 and a number of interpreters210-214 executing in different execution environments 204-208. Each ofthese components is described in further detail below.

Namespace manager 202 may maintain a hierarchical representation (e.g.,hierarchical representation 108 of FIG. 1) of a set of features 230-234that is collaboratively used in machine learning by multiple executionenvironments 204-208, statistical models, teams, projects, and/or otherentities. For example, namespace manager 202 may include a database,data store, messaging service, and/or another mechanism that storesstructured data representing the hierarchical representation andtransmits the hierarchical representation to other components of thesystem.

The hierarchical representation may allow the features to bedeclaratively defined, organized, located, shared, generated, and/orotherwise used by the entities to perform collaborative machinelearning. As shown in FIG. 2, the hierarchical representation mayinclude feature names 218, feature types 220, feature versions 222,feature locations 224, scoping relationships 226, referencerelationships 228, and formulas 216 related to features 230-234. Featurenames 218 may include alphanumeric and/or human-readable identifiers forthe features. For example, feature names 218 for features related to auser in an online professional network may include, but are not limitedto, “age,” “location,” “industry,” “gender,” “title,” “summary,”“skills,” “seniority,” and/or “connections.”

Feature types 220 may identify the data types associated with thefeatures. For example, a feature representing a user's age may have afeature type of “integer,” a feature representing the user's gender mayhave a feature type of “enum { male, female },” and a featurerepresenting a user's title may have a feature type of “string.”

Feature versions 222 may be used to track the development of statisticalmodels, projects, and/or applications that use the features. Forexample, a given feature may have a numeric feature version that matchesa version number of a statistical model and/or application that uses thefeature. As a result, feature versions 222 may be managed along withchanges to components that use the features using a version controlsystem.

Feature locations 224 may represent execution environments 204-208and/or other places from which the features can be obtained. Forexample, a location of a feature may specify a path of a directorycontaining the feature, the name of an execution environment or hostused to produce the feature, and/or a database table in which thefeature is stored.

As mentioned above, the hierarchical representation may include a DAGthat defines a set of namespaces for features 230-234. In particular,the namespaces may be specified using a set of scoping relationships 226between pairs of the features. Each scoping relationship may be adirected edge from a first feature to a second feature, which indicatesthat the first feature is to be included in the namespace of the secondfeature. For example, a scoping relationship from a feature named“member” to a feature named “title” may indicate that “member” is to beappended to the end of a first namespace for “title.” Another directededge from a feature named “job” to a feature named “title” may indicatethat “job” is to be appended to the end of a second namespace for“title,” thus disambiguating between the two features that share thename of “title.” Consequently, scoping relationships 226 may providecontext that allows features from different teams, projects, and/orexecution environments to be shared and managed in a uniform, centralmanner.

The DAG may also include a set of reference relationships 228 thatdefine the creation of derived features (e.g., derived features 116 ofFIG. 1) from primary features (e.g., primary features 114 of FIG. 1)and/or other derived features. Each reference relationship may include adirected edge from a feature to a derived feature, which represents adependency of the derived feature on the feature. The referencerelationships may thus identify and locate a number of features that areused to calculate a given derived feature. For example, referencerelationships from two features named “job” and “skills” to a featurenamed “job-skills” may indicate that “job-skills” is to be derived orcalculated from “job” and “skills.”

In turn, formulas 216 may be applied to one or more features withreference relationships to a derived feature to calculate the derivedfeature. Formulas 216 may include mathematical formulas and/or othertypes of transformations that are described using lambda calculus,first-order logic, regular expressions, and/or another formal system orformal language. Continuing from the above example, the “job-skills”feature may be associated with a mathematical formula that specifies thecalculation of the feature as a cross product of the “job” and “skills”features. To calculate the “job-skills” feature, the mathematicalformula and feature locations 224 of “job” and “skills” may be obtainedfrom the hierarchical representation, and the cross product may beapplied to the values of “job” and “skills” to produce a value for the“job-skills” feature. Hierarchical representations of feature sets forcollaborative machine learning are described in further detail belowwith respect to FIG. 3.

As described above, the system of FIG. 2 may be used to performcollaborative machine learning in multiple execution environments204-208. More specifically, the hierarchical representation of featuresprovided by namespace manager 202 may be used by interpreters 210-214 inthe execution environments to produce and/or consume features 230-234for machine learning.

Each execution environment may include a separate set of hardware and/orsoftware components that provide services, resources, and/or features(e.g., features 230-234) for machine learning, statistical modelexecution, and/or data processing. For example, execution environments204-208 may include a batch execution environment that performsdistributed batch processing and storage of large data sets. In a secondexample, the execution environments may include an online executionenvironment that performs real-time or near real-time (e.g., with adelay of a few seconds) processing of one or more feature sets inresponse to queries related to the feature sets. In a third example, theexecution environments may include a stream-processing environment thatprocesses streams of input data as the input data is collected orreceived from end users, sensors, servers, electronic devices, and/orother data sources. In a fourth example, the execution environments mayinclude a web-based execution environment that provides features and/orother resources through RESTful and/or other types of web services.

An interpreter within a given execution environment may obtain one ormore portions of the hierarchical representation from namespace manager202. For example, the interpreter may query namespace manager 202 forportions of the DAG related to features used by statistical models inthe same execution environment. Alternatively, the interpreter mayobtain a portion or the entirety of the DAG from one or more filesprovided by namespace manager 202.

Next, the interpreter may use information from the hierarchicalrepresentation and one or more communication channels 236-240 withinterpreters in other execution environments to obtain features that maybe used, directly or indirectly, by statistical models in the sameexecution environment. For example, the interpreter may use featuresfrom other execution environments as input to one or more statisticalmodels in the same execution environment and/or to calculate a derivedfeature that is then provided as input to the statistical model(s).

To obtain a given feature, the interpreter may parse the hierarchicalrepresentation to identify another execution environment as a featurelocation of the feature. Next, the interpreter may use a dedicatedcommunication channel (e.g., communication channels 236-240) withanother interpreter in the identified execution environment to extractdata for the feature from the execution environment. For example, theinterpreter may use an application-programming interface (API) with theother interpreter to request and receive the feature from the otherexecution environment. Conversely, the other interpreter may use aseparate API with the interpreter to request and receive features fromthe interpreter's execution environment for use by statistical models inthe other execution environment. In other words, a separatecommunication channel may be used for each direction of communicationbetween each pair of interpreters 210-214 in two different executionenvironments 204-208.

Information in the hierarchical representation may additionally be usedby the interpreter to calculate a derived feature from the obtainedfeatures. First, the interpreter may use reference relationships 228 inthe hierarchical representation to identify a number of features for usein producing the derived feature. Next, the interpreter may use featurelocations 224 of the identified features and one or more communicationchannels 236-240 to extract the identified features from thecorresponding execution environments and/or storage mechanisms. Theinterpreter may then apply a formula (e.g., formulas 216) from thehierarchical representation to the extracted features to produce thederived feature. Finally, the interpreter may provide the derivedfeature for use by one or more statistical models in the same executionenvironment and/or in other execution environments. For example, theinterpreter may store the derived feature in a file, database record,and/or other unit of storage for retrieval and use by statistical modelsin the same execution environment. The interpreter may also receive,through communication channels 236-240, requests for the derived featurefrom interpreters in other execution environments and provide thederived feature in responses to the requests.

Prior to calculating the derived feature from the extracted features,the interpreter may use features types 220 of the extracted features toverify a compatibility of the extracted features in producing thederived feature. More specifically, the interpreter may obtain thefeature types from the hierarchical representation and compare thefeature types to a set of valid feature types associated with theformula used to calculate the derived feature to determine if theextracted features can be used to produce a meaningful value for thederived feature. For example, the interpreter may verify that two inputfeature vectors share the same feature types before calculating a cosinesimilarity from the feature vectors. In another example, the interpretermay verify that one or more input features have a “string” feature typebefore concatenating the input features, applying a regular expressionto the input features, and/or performing other string-based operationsusing the input features.

By providing a declarative, namespaced representation of a feature setin the common feature protocol, the system of FIG. 2 may decouple themodeling of data in the feature set from processing of the data invarious execution environments 204-208. As a result, data modelers mayadd or modify feature descriptions in the common feature protocolindependently of the environment-specific production and consumption ofthe features by data engineers. In turn, the common feature protocol mayreduce the complexity and improve the scalability of large-scale machinelearning over conventional mechanisms that organize and manage separatesets of features for use in different execution environments. Theuniform, logical organization of the feature set in the common featureprotocol may further improve reusability and collaboration by allowingdifferent teams to share common feature data and statistical modelswithout requiring the feature data or statistical models to beaggregated and/or stored in a centralized location.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the system of FIG. 2 maybe implemented in a variety of ways. First, namespace manager 202 andinterpreters 210-214 may be provided by a single physical machine,multiple computer systems, one or more virtual machines, a grid, one ormore databases, one or more filesystems, and/or a cloud computingsystem. One or more instances of an interpreter may run in eachexecution environment to exchange features with interpreters in otherexecution environments and/or generate derived features from theexchanged features, with the number of instances selected to accommodatethe processing needs of the execution environment and/or requests forfeatures from interpreters in other execution environments.

Second, data in the hierarchical representation and/or features 230-234may be created, stored, and/or transmitted in a number of formats. Forexample, the hierarchical representation and/or features may be includedin database records, property lists, Extensible Markup language (XML)documents, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) objects, and/or other typesof structured data.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary hierarchical representation of features in acommon feature protocol in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Asshown in FIG. 3, the common feature protocol may be represented as a DAGthat includes a set of nodes 302-322 representing the features and a setof directed edges 332-362 between pairs of the nodes.

Node 302 functions as the root of the DAG and is included in thenamespace of every other node in the hierarchical representation. Forexample, the name of node 302 (e.g., “org”) may be placed at thebeginning of the namespaces of all other nodes 304-322 in the DAG.

Nodes 304-308 may be connected directly to node 302 via edges 332-336.Edges 332-336 represent scoping relationships between node 302 and nodes304-308, indicating that “org” forms the namespace of nodes 304-308 withnames of “member,” “job,” and “job_rec,” respectively. As a result,nodes 304-308 have fully namespaced names of “org.member,” “org_job,”and “org.job_rec,” respectively.

Nodes 310-314 may be connected directly to node 304 via edges 338-342.Edges 338-342 represent scoping relationships between node 304 and nodes310-314, resulting in a namespace of “org.member” for nodes 310-314 withnames of “title,” “skills,” and “geo.” In turn, nodes 310-314 have fullynamespaced names of “org.member.title,” “org.member.skills,” and“org.member.geo,” respectively.

Similarly, edges 344-348 represent scoping relationships between node306 and nodes 316-320, resulting in a namespace of “org.job” for nodes316-320 with the same names of “title,” “skills,” and “geo” as those ofnodes 310-314. The fully namespaced names of “org.job.title,”“org.job.skills,” and “org.job.geo” for nodes 316-320 may thus be usedto disambiguate between features represented by nodes 310-314 andfeatures represented by nodes 316-320, which are under a differentnamespace of “org.member.”

Edge 350 may represent a scoping relationship between node 308 and node322. Node 322 may thus have a name of “similarities,” a namespace of“org.job_rec,” and a fully namespaced name of“org.job_rec.similarities.”

As described above, the common feature protocol may be used to centrallymanage and organize features across multiple execution environments,teams, projects, and/or other entities. For example, nodes 304 and310-314 may be associated with a grouping 324 representing one entity;nodes 302, 308 and 322 may be associated with a second grouping 328representing a second entity; and nodes 306 and 316-320 may beassociated with a third grouping 326 representing a third entity.

Because features represented by nodes 302-322 are centrally definedusing the common feature protocol, information in the common featureprotocol may be used to share the features across the entities. Forexample, a feature represented by node 316 may include the followingcompact definition:

-   -   ranker::org.job.title.2.3.1        In the above definition, “ranker” represents an execution        environment from which the feature may be obtained,        “org.job.title” is the fully namespaced name of node 322, and        “2.3.1” is the version of the feature. As a result, an        interpreter in a different execution environment may use a        communication channel with the “ranker” execution environment to        request the “org.job.title.2.3.1” feature, include the feature        in input to a statistical model, and/or use the feature to        calculate a derived feature.

Nodes 310-320 are additionally connected to node 322 by edges 352-362.Unlike edges 332-350, edges 352-362 represent reference relationshipsthat are used to define the calculation of a derived feature representedby node 322 from features represented by nodes 310-320. For example,edges 352-362 and other information in the hierarchical representationmay indicate the calculation of the derived feature as a cosinesimilarity between three pairs of features named “org.member.title” and“org.job.title,” “org.member.skills” and “org.job.skills,” and“org.member.geo” and “org.job.geo.” Moreover, edges 352-362 and thecalculation of the feature represented by node 322 may be defined usingthe following:

{   “type” : “laser.java.class”,   “name” : “org.job_rec.similarities”,  “version” : “2.3.1”,   “location” : “laser”   “parameters” : {     a ={“org.member.title”, “org.member.skills”,       “org.member.geo”}     b= {“org.job.title”, “org.job.skills”,       “org.job.geo”}     returncosine_similarity(a, b)   } }The above definition includes a feature type of “laser.java.class,” afully namespaced name of “org.job_rec.similarities,” a version of“2.3.1,” and a location (e.g., execution environment) of “laser.” A setof “parameters” is used to define the calculation of the feature as acosine similarity of two vectors, with the first vector containingfeatures represented by nodes 310-314 and the second vector containingfeatures represented by nodes 316-320. The “parameters” in thedefinition may also be used to verify a compatibility of feature typesin the first and second vectors as input to the cosine similarity beforethe derived feature is calculated. For example, the feature types of thethree pairs of features represented by “org.member.title” and“org.job.title,” “org.member.skills” and “org.job.skills,” and“org.member.geo” and “org.job.geo” may be verified to be the same beforethe cosine similarity is applied to two vectors “a” and “b” that containthe features.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart illustrating the processing of data inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments. In one or more embodiments,one or more of the steps may be omitted, repeated, and/or performed in adifferent order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement of steps shown inFIG. 4 should not be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments.

Initially, a hierarchical representation of a set of features shared bya set of statistical models is obtained (operation 402). Thehierarchical representation may include a DAG that defines a set ofnamespaces for the features and/or additional relationships among thefeatures. The DAG may include a set of nodes representing the featuresand a set of scoping relationships represented by directed edges betweenpairs of the nodes, such that a feature from which a directed edgeoriginates is included in the namespace of another feature at which thedirected edge terminates. The DAG may also include a set of referencerelationships that are also represented by directed edges between pairsof the nodes, such that a feature from which a directed edge originatesis used to calculate a derived feature at which the directed edgeterminates. The DAG may further include feature names, feature versions,and/or feature types of the features, as well as formulas forcalculating the derived feature from other features.

Next, the hierarchical representation is used to obtain, from one ormore execution environments, a subset of the features for use incalculating the derived feature (operation 404), as described in furtherdetail below with respect to FIG. 5. A set of feature types associatedwith the subset of features is also obtained from the hierarchicalrepresentation (operation 406) and used to verify a compatibility of thefeatures in producing the derived feature (operation 408). For example,the feature types may be matched to constraints associated with amathematical formula or other transformation for producing the derivedfeature to ensure that the calculation produces a meaningful or validresult.

A formula from the hierarchical representation is then applied to thesubset of the features to produce the derived feature (operation 410),and the derived feature is provided for use by one or more of thestatistical models (operation 412). For example, the formula may be usedto calculate a value of the derived feature from values of the subset offeatures, and the value of the derived feature may be stored in a fileor database record. The value may additionally be transmitted to otherexecution environments for use by statistical models in the otherexecution environments. For example, interpreters in the other executionenvironments may use the hierarchical representation to locate thederived feature and request the derived feature the executionenvironment in which the derived feature was produced.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart illustrating the process of using ahierarchical representation of a feature set to obtain a subset of thefeatures for use in calculating a derived feature in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments. In one or more embodiments, one or more of thesteps may be omitted, repeated, and/or performed in a different order.Accordingly, the specific arrangement of steps shown in FIG. 5 shouldnot be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments.

First, a set of reference relationships between the derived feature andthe subset of features is obtained from the hierarchical representation(operation 502) and used to identify the subset of features for use incalculating the derived feature (operation 504). As mentioned above, thereference relationships may be directed edges that originate in thesubset of the features and terminate in the derived feature. Thus, thehierarchical representation may be parsed or interpreted to obtain thedirected edges and identify the subset of the features as input to thecalculation of the derived feature.

Next, an execution environment for a feature in the subset is obtainedfrom the hierarchical representation (operation 506), and acommunication channel with the execution environment is used to obtainthe feature from the execution environment (operation 508). For example,the execution environment may be obtained from the definition of thefeature in the hierarchical representation, and an API with theexecution environment may be used to request the feature from theexecution environment. Operations 506-508 may be repeated for remainingfeatures (operation 510) in the subset until all features in the subsethave been received from the corresponding execution environment(s).

FIG. 6 shows a computer system 600 in accordance with an embodiment.Computer system 600 includes a processor 602, memory 604, storage 606,and/or other components found in electronic computing devices. Processor602 may support parallel processing and/or multi-threaded operation withother processors in computer system 600. Computer system 600 may alsoinclude input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard 608, a mouse 610,and a display 612.

Computer system 600 may include functionality to execute variouscomponents of the present embodiments. In particular, computer system600 may include an operating system (not shown) that coordinates the useof hardware and software resources on computer system 600, as well asone or more applications that perform specialized tasks for the user. Toperform tasks for the user, applications may obtain the use of hardwareresources on computer system 600 from the operating system, as well asinteract with the user through a hardware and/or software frameworkprovided by the operating system.

In one or more embodiments, computer system 600 provides a system forprocessing data. The system may include a namespace manager thatprovides a hierarchical representation of a set of features shared by aset of statistical models. The hierarchical representation may include aset of namespaces for the set of features. The system may also includean interpreter in an execution environment associated with one or moreof the features. The interpreter may use the hierarchical representationto obtain, from one or more other execution environments, a subset ofthe features for use in calculating a derived feature. Next, theinterpreter may apply a formula from the hierarchical representation tothe subset of the features to produce the derived feature. Theinterpreter may then provide the derived feature for use by one or moreof the statistical models.

In addition, one or more components of computer system 600 may beremotely located and connected to the other components over a network.Portions of the present embodiments (e.g., namespace manager,interpreters, execution environments, statistical models, etc.) may alsobe located on different nodes of a distributed system that implementsthe embodiments. For example, the present embodiments may be implementedusing a cloud computing system that uses a common feature protocolcontaining a namespace representation of a set of features to performcollaborative machine learning across a set of remote statistical modelsin the execution environments.

The foregoing descriptions of various embodiments have been presentedonly for purposes of illustration and description. They are not intendedto be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the formsdisclosed. Accordingly, many modifications and variations will beapparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Additionally, the abovedisclosure is not intended to limit the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: obtaining a hierarchicalrepresentation comprising a set of namespaces of a set of featuresshared by a set of statistical models; and calculating, by one or morecomputer systems, a derived feature from the set of features by: usingthe hierarchical representation to obtain, from one or more executionenvironments, a subset of the features for use in calculating thederived feature; and applying a formula from the hierarchicalrepresentation to the subset of the features to produce the derivedfeature; and providing the derived feature for use by one or more of thestatistical models.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating thederived feature from the set of features further comprises: obtaining,from the hierarchical representation, a set of feature types associatedwith the subset of the features; and using the feature types to verify acompatibility of the subset of the features in producing the derivedfeature prior to applying the formula to the subset of the features. 3.The method of claim 1, wherein using the hierarchical representation toobtain the subset of the features for use in calculating the derivedfeature comprises: obtaining, from the hierarchical representation, aset of reference relationships between the derived feature and thesubset of the features; and using the set of reference relationships toidentify the subset of the features.
 4. The method of claim 3, whereinusing the hierarchical representation to obtain the subset of thefeatures for use in calculating the derived feature further comprises:obtaining, from the hierarchical representation, an executionenvironment for a feature in the subset of features; and using acommunication channel with the execution environment to obtain thefeature from the execution environment.
 5. The method of claim 3,wherein the set of reference relationships comprises a set of directededges from the subset of the features to the derived feature.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical representation comprises adirected acyclic graph (DAG).
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein thehierarchical representation further comprises: a set of nodesrepresenting the set of features; and a set of scoping relationshipsbetween pairs of nodes in the set of nodes, wherein the set of scopingrelationships defines the set of namespaces.
 8. The method of claim 7,wherein the hierarchical representation further comprises a set offeature names and a set of feature versions for the set of features. 9.The method of claim 7, wherein the set of scoping relationshipscomprises a directed edge from a first feature in a namespace of asecond feature to the second feature.
 10. The method of claim 1, whereinthe one or more execution environments comprise at least one of: a batchexecution environment; an online execution environment; astream-processing environment; and a web-based execution environment.11. An apparatus, comprising: one or more processors; and memory storinginstructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causethe apparatus to: obtain a hierarchical representation comprising a setof namespaces of a set of features shared by a set of statisticalmodels; use the hierarchical representation to obtain, from one or moreexecution environments, a subset of the features for use in calculatinga derived feature; apply a formula from the hierarchical representationto the subset of the features to produce the derived feature; andprovide the derived feature for use by one or more of the statisticalmodels.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein calculating the derivedfeature from the set of features further comprises: obtaining, from thehierarchical representation, a set of feature types associated with thesubset of the features; and using the feature types to verify acompatibility of the subset of the features in producing the derivedfeature prior to applying the formula to the subset of the features. 13.The apparatus of claim 11, wherein using the hierarchical representationto obtain the subset of the features for use in calculating the derivedfeature comprises: obtaining, from the hierarchical representation, aset of reference relationships between the derived feature and thesubset of the features; and using the set of reference relationships toidentify the subset of the features.
 14. The apparatus of claim 13,wherein using the hierarchical representation to obtain the subset ofthe features for use in calculating the derived feature furthercomprises: obtaining, from the hierarchical representation, an executionenvironment for a feature in the subset of features; and using acommunication channel with the execution environment to obtain thefeature from the execution environment.
 15. The apparatus of claim 11,wherein the hierarchical representation further comprises: a set ofnodes representing the set of features; and a set of scopingrelationships between pairs of nodes in the set of nodes, wherein theset of scoping relationships defines the set of namespaces.
 16. Theapparatus of claim 15, wherein the hierarchical representation furthercomprises a set of feature names and a set of feature versions for theset of features.
 17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the set ofscoping relationships comprises a directed edge from a first feature ina namespace of a second feature to the second feature.
 18. The apparatusof claim 11, wherein the one or more execution environments comprise atleast one of: a batch execution environment; an online executionenvironment; a stream-processing environment; and a web-based executionenvironment.
 19. A system, comprising: a namespace manager comprising anon-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that,when executed, cause the system to provide a hierarchical representationcomprising a set of namespaces of a set of features shared by a set ofstatistical models; and an interpreter comprising a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed,cause the system to: use the hierarchical representation to obtain, fromone or more execution environments, a subset of the features for use incalculating a derived feature; apply a formula from the hierarchicalrepresentation to the subset of the features to produce the derivedfeature; and provide the derived feature for use by one or more of thestatistical models.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein calculating thederived feature from the set of features further comprises: obtaining,from the hierarchical representation, a set of feature types associatedwith the subset of the features; and using the feature types to verify acompatibility of the subset of the features in producing the derivedfeature prior to applying the formula to the subset of the features.